Winner
The Christie Enhanced Supportive Care Initiative; “Supportive care makes excellent cancer care possible”
By The Christie NHS Foundation Trust
The Christie is one of the largest single site cancer centres in Europe treating more than 40,000 patients a year. The specialist supportive care team is an expanding service within the trust, made up of medical and nursing professionals, with a background of pain and palliative care expertise. In addition to pain and palliative care, services include chaplaincy, psycho-oncology, dietetics, physiotherapy and pharmacy. The team’s enhanced supportive care model is a new initiative aimed at patients with advancing progressive cancer and extending the excellent care patients receive at the end of life to include the whole continuum of cancer.
Judges’ comments
“This initiative takes care to the next level and shows that palliative care is about so much more than end-of-life. The team has ensured that ‘supportive care’ is embedded at the start of the journey and in doing so facilitates frank discussion. It reduced deaths, chemotherapy and the number of emergency admissions. The outcomes are fantastic and have inspired further planning. This is the way forward.”
Finalist
Prostate Cancer Survivorship Pathway
By Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust
There are an increasing number of people living with and after cancer in the UK and patients may be living with moderate to severe side effects after they finish their cancer treatment. A new survivorship prostate cancer pathway has been designed and implemented to incorporate the ‘Recovery Package’ at Guy’s and St Thomas’. The pathway aims to improve patient experience and quality of care, and to ensure patients live a healthier and active life after treatment. The new pathway has been devised with patients, by collecting data from focus groups, patient experience questionnaires and Holistic Needs Assessments, which are patient tools to highlight concerns and anxieties.
Judges’ comments
“This initiative leads the way to national change! It is transferrable and sustainable – embedding changes into current practice at no extra cost. This is an example of robust pathway re-design. It had clear objectives and strong results – the impact is undeniable. The initiative reflected and improved patient experience.“
Finalist
ERAS+ – enhanced recovery for major cancer surgery
By Manchester Royal Infirmary
Greater Manchester Medical Health aims to improve 5-year survival to 70% for all cancers, and has developed a new enhanced recovery surgery pathway aimed specifically at major cancer surgery patients. Developed by the ERAS+ team, it has been used over the last 12 months in more than 500 cancer patients and has demonstrated a substantial reduction in post-operative pulmonary complications in the major cancer surgical population in an acute NHS setting. This has major implications for cancer surgery and potentially 5-year survival. The team believes its toolset of innovations could be rapidly dispersed across the NHS.
Judges’ comments
“In terms of enhanced recovery, the judges believe this takes current work to a new level. The programme was developed by ‘listening’ to patients and families, taking their opinions into consideration in pathway discussions. The judges believe this has enormous potential to impact at a national level.”
Finalist
Demystifying Chemotherapy – Planning Ahead
By Queen Alexandra Hospital
The hospital’s research found that patients were ill-informed about chemotherapy so a project was initiated to address the educational needs of patients and their carers prior to starting treatment.
Demystifying Chemotherapy sessions were designed and tailored by a patient focus group based on their chemotherapy experience to fulfil patient needs. The patient focus group continues to support the project. Sessions have now been running for four years and have recently seen delivery support from other professionals in oncology, reinforcing the same messages and the importance of information remaining current.
Judges’ comments
“The team used group support to gain buy in from commissioners and made good use of nurses’ time, to develop a great concept.”
